Re: [spoon-discuss] No, I haven't really forgotten...

[Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sunday, April 20, 2003, at 11:47  PM, Baron von Skippy wrote:

> > Someone made a guess in the Number Game a while back -- Orc, maybe? 
> > -- but
> > I still can't figure out how to respond. No, really, I'm not sure 
> > what the
> > hell a 'distance in five-dimensional space' or whatever that rule asks
> > for, is.
> >
> > Someone's gonna have to explain it to me in terms a five-year-old can
> > understand.
> >
> > ...dave
> -The distance between two points on a plane is equal to the square 
> root of the sum of the squares of delta x and delta y. Pythagorean 
> theorem, for those of you going "what the...?".
>
> So, the distance in 5-d space is, through some extrapolation of the 
> Pythagoream theorem, distance^2 = (delta v)^2 + (delta w)^2 + (delta 
> x)^2 + (delta y)^2 + (delta z)^2, where v, w, x, y, and z are the five 
> numbers, and delta (letter) is the real number minus the guess.
>
> You know, this is a dumb game. The odds of winning are 3.2 million to 
> one. If you guess right, you should just win B Nomic, given those 
> odds. We need an equalizer or something.-

The system isn't dumb; if you guess at random, then yes, your odds of 
winning are one in 20^5. But given five guesses, if you know how to 
solve systems of equations, you can solve for all five values. If 
you're *really* lucky, you could do it with as few as 2 guesses... 
that's unlikely, though.
Still, it only costs 20 points to make five guesses, and thirty points 
is the payback; so you make ten points (or more, if you let other 
people make guesses and use them). That's not too shabby for a few 
minutes of computation.

--
Wonko

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